The goal of Cityscape is to bring high-quality original research on housing and community development issues to scholars, government officials, and practitioners. Cityscape is open to all relevant disciplines, including architecture, consumer research, demography, economics, engineering, ethnography, finance, geography, law, planning, political science, public policy, regional science, sociology, statistics, and urban studies.

Cityscape is published three times a year by the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Public Purpose of FHA

Roberto G. Quercia
Kevin A. Park
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Policy Briefs
The Policy Briefs department summarizes a change or trend in national policy that may
have escaped the attention of researchers. The purpose is to stimulate the analysis of
policy in the field while the policy is being implemented and thereafter. If you have an
idea for future Policy Briefs, please contact david.l.hardiman@hud.gov.

Recent reviews of the Federal Housing Administration’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance
(MMI) Fund find that the losses on its portfolio are projected to exceed the revenue from
its existing insurance policies and its current capital resources. This article places the
MMI Fund’s “negative economic value” and recent draw on the U.S. Treasury in context
and argues that the justification for federal mortgage insurance is the public purpose
it serves by filling gaps the private sector leaves, thereby contributing to a healthy and
stable housing market.